food which she denied herself, thus bringing forth fruits of mercy and charity from the root of penance. This was the only way in which her loving good-will and tender compassion could show themselves in action; poverty made anything further impossible. But the Lord, who searches the heart, and delights in men of goodwill, sought nothing more from Rita then. But she was unconsciously increasing in charity and in merit as she grew in years, so that she could apply to herself the saying of Job--that mercy came out with him from his mother's womb, and from his infancy grew up with him.[1] Not only did her spirit grow, as it were, and become strong by the exercise of these beautiful virtues, but her progress in all virtue was extraordinary. [1] Job xxi. 18. CHAPTER VII RITA'S LOVE OF RETIREMENT St. John the Baptist experienced a similar strengthening of the spirit, as we read in that place in which it is also written that he went into the desert, where he hid himself, as Blessed Simon says, in order to give himself up entirely to prayer, contemplation, and penance. The comparison between these saints is often a fitting one, for Rita always follows closely in the footsteps of her great model. It is true that, according to the example of the Psalmist, she walked in the innocence of her heart, in the bosom of her virtuous family, for she found nothing abroad that could distract her spirit from the affairs of her home, whilst her gravity, modesty, and habitual seclusion opened to her a wide field for the exercise of her love of prayer. Yet she was so enamoured of heavenly things that she wearied of the things of earth, and desired, in a certain sense, to be out of the world; and since this could not be, she regarded with a holy envy the lot of so many anchorites and heroines of solitude, who, in deserts and in the depths of woods, lived lives more like those of angels than of men. She had before her eyes the examples of Blessed Simon, of Blessed Ugolino, of Blessed John, and of the other saintly hermits of St Augustine, who had only recently passed to their reward in heaven, or were still living in the neighbourhood of Rocca Porena. The example of these models of holiness increased in her heart her dearest desire to serve her beloved Jesus amid the silence of the woods and on the mounts of myrrh. But the love of her aged parents, and obedience, more than any thought of her youth and sex, prevented her from fulfilling her generous design. The sacred love with which she was animated made her industrious, and suggested the thought of converting her home into the solitude she longed for. With the consent of her parents she chose a little room separated from the others, and turned it into an oratory. Its walls she decorated with pictures of our Lord's Passion, and there she shut herself in, as into the midst of all delights. Her Divine Lover awaited her there to speak to her heart, and there, far from the eyes